it is Lady Psyche's child that is the true, effective heroine of the story, as Dr. Dawson aptly points out. "Ridiculous in the lecture room, the babe in the poem, as in the songs, is made the central point upon which the plot turns, for the unconscious child is the concrete embodiment of Nature herself, clearing away all merely intellectual theories by her silent influence." This is the explanation, then, of the appearance of the babe--symbol of the power and tenderness of Nature--in critical passages of the poem, as well as in the unsurpassably beautiful intercalary songs, for it is the child that enables the poet to soften the Princess's nature toward the Prince, and to effect the reconciliation between the Princess and Lady Psyche, while imparting beauty as well as high meaning in the recital of the incidents and development of the tale.
"In Memoriam," as we have stated, appeared in 1850, and was unique in its appeal to the mind of the era as a stately meditative poem on a single theme,--the death of the poet's friend, Arthur Hallam. The English language, if we except Milton's 'Lycidas' and 'Hymn to the Nativity,' and Wordsworth's grand 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality,' has no poem so noble or so faultless in its art as this magnificent series of detached elegies. The high thought, philosophic reflection, and passionate religious sentiment that mark the whole work, added to the exquisiteness of the versification, place it wellnigh supreme in the literature of elegiac poetry. Its grave, majestic hymnal measure adds to its solemn beauty and stateliness, while the varied phases of spiritualized thought and emotional grief which find expression in the poem seem to elevate it in its harmonies to the rank of a profound psalm-chant from the choir of heaven. In the sumptuously embellished edition of the elegy, embodying Mr. Harry Fenn's drawings, with a sympathetic preface by the Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke, there is a brief but luminous analysis of the nine divisions of the poem, or commentary on the great classic. To those who desire to read the great elegy understandingly, the value of Dr. Van Dyke's work is earnestly commended, since without this commentary, or such as are to be obtained in other critical sources, there is much of poetic beauty, of sorrow-brooding thought, and especially of emotional reflection on life, death, and immortality, in the hundred and thirty lyrics of which the poem consists, which will be lost to even the thoughtful reader. The poem, as a critic truthfully observes, has done much "to express and to consolidate all that is best in the life of England, its domestic affection, its patriotic feeling, its healthful morality, its rational and earnest religion."
The sentimental metrical romance "Maud" appeared in 1855 (the year of the Crimean War), with some additional poems, including 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' written after Raglan's repulse of the Russians at Balaclava, and the fine 'Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.' The lyrical love-drama, "Maud," we are told, was one of Tennyson's favorite productions, of which he was wont to read parts to his guests. As the poet has himself said of the monodrama, "it is a little Hamlet," "the history of a morbid poetic soul, under the blighting influence of a recklessly speculative age. He is the heir of madness, an egotist with the makings of a cynic, raised to sanity by a pure and holy love which elevates his whole nature, passing from the heights of triumph to the lowest depths of misery, driven into madness by the loss of her whom he has loved, and when he has at length passed through the fiery furnace, and has recovered his reason, giving himself up to work for the good of mankind through the unselfishness born of his great passion." The poem, when it appeared, was reviled by some critics as an allegory of the war with Russia, and they did its author the injustice of supposing that he lauded war for war's sake, instead of, as is the case, applauding war only in defence of liberty. Apart from this misunderstanding, due to abhorrence of the war-frenzy of the period, the poem has outlived the mistaken objections to it when it appeared, and is now admired in its vindicated light, and especially for the rich and copious beauty manifest throughout the work, and for the magnificent lyric art with which it is composed.
We now come to Tennyson's masterpiece, the "Idylls of the King," an epic of chivalry, interpreted as personifying in its various characters the soul at war with the senses. These appeared during the years 1859 and 1872. Each of the Idylls, which has a connecting thread binding it to its fellow-allegory, takes its plot or fable from the legendary lore that has clustered round the name of Arthur, mythical King of the Britons about the era of the first invasion by the English. Out of the mass of material which was gathered by Sir Thomas Malory for his prose history of Arthur and his Knights, Tennyson takes the chief incidents and noblest heroic traits of character in the legends and blends them in a fashion of his own, steeping them in an atmosphere which his imagination creates, and lighting up all with a passion and glory of knightly adventure, as well as with a chasteness, purity, and high fervor of ethical thought, that must perpetuate the romance, as he has given it us, unto all time. The sections of the work as it now stands, in addition to its introductory dedication to the late Prince Consort, and the closing poem to the late Queen Victoria, are as follows: 'The Coming of Arthur,' which relates the mystery of the birth of the King, his marriage to Guinevere, daughter of Leodogran, King of Cameliard, and the wonders attending his crowning and establishment on the throne; next comes 'Gareth and Lynette,' a tale of love and scorn, and of the conflict between a false pride and a true ambition; to this is appended 'The Marriage of Geraint,' of Arthur's court, and a member of the great order of the Round Table. Next follows 'Geraint and Enid,'--Enid, the gentle and timid, whom Geraint had married after wooing the haughty Lynette,--a tale of pure and loyal womanhood, darkened for awhile by the clouds of jealousy and suspicion, yet closing happily long after the "spiteful whispers" had died down, and Geraint, assured of Enid's fealty, had ruled his kingdom well and gone forth to "crown a happy life with a fair death" against the heathen of the Northern Sea, "fighting for the blameless King." The next Idyll relates how the venerable magician Merlin succumbs to the thrall of the wily harlot Vivien, decked in her rare robe of samite, and yields to her the charm which was his secret. 'Lancelot and Elaine' follows with its conflict between the virgin innocence of Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, and the guilty passion of the noble though erring Lancelot. To this, in order, succeeds 'The Holy Grail,' telling of the vain quest of Arthur's Knights for the sacred relic. Despite its mystic character, this is admittedly one of the finest of the series of Idylls, and rich in its spiritual teaching,--that the heavenly vision is to be seen only by the eyes of purity and grace. 'Pelleas and Ettarre' is a tale of dole, showing the evil at work at the court, and the wrecking effect of another woman's perfidy. 'The Last Tournament' has for its hero the court fool, who, amid the treason of Arthur's knights, is firm in his loyal allegiance to the King. In contrast to him is Sir Tristram, who, despite his prowess, in jousts on the tilting-field, is "one to whom faith is foolishness, and the higher life an idle delusion." The climax is reached in 'Guinevere,' whom, in spite of her faithlessness and guilty intrigue with Lancelot, Arthur, with his great high soul, pityingly loves and forgives. The end comes with the sad though shadowy 'Passing of Arthur,' the royal barge mysteriously carrying him out into the beyond, whence issue sounds of hail and greeting to the victor-hero
"----as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars."
In 1864 Tennyson published "Enoch Arden," an idyll of the hearth, depicting a pathetic incident in a seafarer's career, of much simple idyllic beauty. The poem has some fine descriptive passages, and many examples of the poet's rich word-painting in treating of the splendid tropic scenery among which the mariner is for the time cast. The volume contained also some minor pieces, including the dialect poem, 'The Northern Farmer,' with its humorous rendering of yokel speech. This was followed (1875-84) by three dramas on English historical themes, which, as the poet had not, as we have already hinted, the gifts of a Shakespeare, were somewhat unsuccessful, though written, despite Tennyson's advanced years, with much fine force and vividness of character delineation. These dramas (to enumerate them in their historic order) were "Harold," "Becket," and "Queen Mary." "Becket" is the best and most ambitious of them, though not, as "Queen Mary" is, a play designed for the stage. It is a vigorous Englishman's closet study of a prolonged and bitter struggle--the conflict in Henry II.'s time between the church and the crown--as exhibited in the person and dominant ecclesiastical attitude of the audacious prelate who met his tragic end by Canterbury's altar. "Harold" strikingly realizes to the modern reader the stirring activities of a strenuous time,--that of the English conquest by Norman William, opposed to the death by Harold at Senlac in 1066. The drama is as rich in character as it is swift and energetic in action. "Queen Mary" deals with the religious and political dissensions (the struggle between the Papacy and the Reformation) of Mary Tudor's era, with her love for and marriage with Philip of Spain, and her hopeless yearning for an heir to the double crown of England and Spain. An important and prized addition to our English literature the drama undoubtedly is, but it is not more than a careful, accurate, and elaborate historical study. It lacks, both in spirit and movement, the characteristics of the Shakespearian drama. Its characters, however, are vividly brought out, and its situations are often picturesque and telling. The personages, moreover, are wanting in the play of creative effect, and the incidents lack the stir of inventive resource. Further, though the story of Mary's life is essentially dramatic, and the incidents of her reign are tragic in the extreme, the poet does not seem to have extracted from either that which goes to the making of a great drama. This evidently is the result of following too faithfully the events of history and the records of the time, as well as, in some degree, from want of sympathy, which Tennyson could not impart, with the leading characters and their actions. Still, much is made of the materials; and though the personages and incidents appear in the narrative in the neutral tints of history, yet the period is made to reappear with a freshness and distinctness which, while it satisfies the scholar, gives a true charm to every lover of the drama. Again and again, as we read, are we reminded of the Laureate's rare poetical fancy and fine literary instinct, and the dialogues contain many passages of striking thought and noble utterance. But the work is overcast by the great gloom of its central figure,--the gloom of bigotry, passion, jealousy, disappointment, and despair which ever environs the miserable Queen; and much though the poet has striven to brighten the picture and awaken sympathy for the weakness of the woman, who, royal mistress though she was, could not command her love to be requited, the poetic measure of his lines roughens and hardens to the close, when the curtain falls on what is felt to be a tragic and unlovely life.
We can only briefly refer to the other dramatis personae introduced to us, who are among the notable historical characters that figure during Mary Tudor's reign. They are those who take part in the incidents, religious, civil, and political, of the period, and are, for the most part, both in speech and bearing, the portraits familiar to us in Mr. Froude's history. Of these the most pleasing is the Princess Elizabeth, whose portrait is drawn with masterly skill, and engages our interest as the fortunes of its original oscillates "'Twixt Axe and Crown":--
"A Tudor
Schooled by the shadow of death, a Boleyn too